Lustra of Ezra Pound

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EZRA FOUND

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LUSTRA OF EZRA POUND

F 7 R A POUND.

LUSTRA

OF

EZRA POUND

Definition " LUSTRUM : an offering for the sins of the whole
people, made by the censors at the expiration of their
five years of office."

Elementary Latin Dictionary of Charlton T. Lewis.

LONDON
ELKIN MATHEWS, CORK STREET

M CM XVI

CERTAIN of these poems have appeared in Poetry,
Blast, Poetry and Drama, Smart Set, and Others l
to the editors of which magazines the author
wishes to make due acknowledgment.

E. P.

V. L.

GUI dono lepidum novum libellum.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Tenzone 9

The Condolence .... 10

The Garret 11

The Garden 12

Ortus 13

Salutation 14

The Spring 15

Albatre 16

Causa 16

A Pact 17

Surgit Fama 18

Preference 19

Dance Figure .... 20

April 22

Gentildonna 22

The Best 23

Les Millwin 24

Further Instructions . . 25

A Song of the Degrees . . 26

Ite 27

Dum Capitolium Scandet . 27

To Ka\ov 27

The Study in Aesthetics . 28

The Bellaires .... 29

Salvationists .... 32

Arides 33

The Bath Tub .... 33

Amities 34

To Dives . 35

PAGE

Ladies 36

Coda 37

Ancora ...... 38

" Dompna pois de me no'us

cal" 39

The Coming of War:

Actaeon ..... 42

After Ch'u Yuan ... 43

Liu Ch'e 43

Fan-piece, for her Imperial

Lord 44

Ts'aiChi'h 44

In a Station of the Metro . 45

Alba 45

Heather 45

The Faun 46

Pervigilium 46

The Encounter .... 47

Tempora 47

Black Slippers : Bellotti . 48

Society 48

Image from D'Orleans . . 49

Papyrus 49

1 ' lone, Dead the Long Year' ' 50

Shop Girl 50

To Formianus' Young Lady

Friend 51

Tame Cat 52

L'Art, 1910 52

CONTENTS

PAOB

Simulacra 53

Women before a Shop . . 53

Epilogue 54

The Social Order ... 55

The Tea Shop .... 56

Epitaphs 57

Our Contemporaries . . 57
Ancient Wisdom, Bather

Cosmic 58

The Three Poets ... 58

The Gipsy ....... 59

The Game of Chess ... 60

Provincia Deserta ... 61

CATHAY

Song of the Bowmen of

Shu 67

The Beautiful Toilet. . 69

The Eiver Song ... 70
The River Merchant's

Wife : A Letter . . 73
The Jewel Stairs'

Grievance .... 75
Poem by the Bridge at

Ten- Shin .... 76
Lament of the Frontier

Guard 78

Exile's Letter . 80

PAGE

Four Poems of Departure
Separation on the Eiver

Kiang 85

Taking Leave of a

Friend .... 85
Leave - taking near

Shoku 86

The City of Choan. . 87
South Folk in Cold
Country 88

Sennin Poem by Kakuhaku 89

A Ballad of the Mulberry
Eoad 90

Old Idea of Choan by
Eosoriu 91

To-Em-Mei's "The Un-
moving Cloud" ... 93

Near Perigord .... 95

Villanelle : The Psychologi-
cal Hour 104

Dans un Omnibus de
Londres 107

To a Friend Writing on
Cabaret Dancers . . . 109

Homage to Quintus Septi-
mius Florentis Chris -
tianus 113

Fish and the Shadow , 115

LUSTRA OF EZRA POUND

Tenzone

WILL people accept them ?

(i.e. these songs).
As a timorous wench from a centaur

(or a centurion),
Already they flee, howling in terror.

Will they be touched with the verisimilitudes ?

Their virgin stupidity is untemptable.
I beg you, my friendly critics,
Do not set about to procure me an audience.

I mate with my free kind upon the crags ;

the hidden recesses
Have heard the echo of my heels,

in the cool light,

in the darkness.

9

The Condolence

A mis soledades voy,
De mis soledades vengo,
Porque por andar conmigo
Mi bastan mis pensamientos.
Lope de Vega.

O MY fellow sufferers, songs of my youth,
A lot of asses praise you because you are " virile,"
We, you, I ! We are " Red Bloods " !
Imagine it, my fellow sufferers
Our maleness lifts us out of the ruck,
Who'd have foreseen it ?

O my fellow sufferers, we went out under the

trees,

We were in especial bored with male stupidity.
We went forth gathering delicate thoughts,
Our " fantastikon" delighted to serve us.
We were not exasperated with women,
for the female is ductile.

And now you hear what is said to us :
We are compared to that sort of person
Who wanders about announcing his sex
As if he had just discovered it.
Let us leave this matter, my songs,

and return to that which concerns us.

10

The Garret

COME let us pity those who are better off than

we are.
Come, my friend, and remember

that the rich have butlers and no friends,
And we have friends and no butlers.
Come let us pity the married and the unmarried.

Dawn enters with little feet

like a gilded Pavlova,
And I am near my desire.
Nor has life in it aught better
Than this hour of clear coolness,

the hour of waking together.

11

The Garden

En robe de parade.
Samain.

LIKE a skein of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington

Gardens,
And she is dying piece-meal

of a sort of emotional anaemia.

And round about there is a rabble

Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the

very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.

In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like someone to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I

will commit that indiscretion.

12

Ortus

How have I laboured ?

How have I not laboured

To bring her soul to birth,

To give these elements a name and a centre !

She is beautiful as the sunlight, and as fluid.

She has no name, and no place.

How have I laboured to bring her soul into

separation ;
To give her a name and her being !

Surely you are bound and entwined,

You are mingled with the elements unborn ;

I have loved a stream and a shadow.

I beseech you enter your life.
I beseech you learn to say " I "
When I question you :
For you are no part, but a whole ;
No portion, but a being.

13

Salutation

GENERATION of the thoroughly smug

and thoroughly uncomfortable,

1 have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun,
I have seen them with untidy families,

I have seen their smiles full of teeth

and heard ungainly laughter.

And I am happier than you are,
And they were happier than I am ;
And the fish swim in the lake

and do not even own clothing.

14

The Spring

CYDONIAN spring with her attendant train,

Maelids and water-girls,

Stepping beneath a boisterous wind from Thrace,

Throughout this sylvan place

Spreads the bright tips,

And every vine-stock is

Clad in new brilliancies.

And wild desire
Falls like black lightning.
O bewildered heart,
Though every branch have back what last year

lost,

She, who moved here amid the cyclamen,
Moves only now a clinging tenuous ghost.

15

Albatre

THIS lady in the white bath-robe which she calls

a peignoir

Is, for the time being, the mistress of my friend,
And the delicate white feet of her little white

dog

Are not more delicate than she is,
Nor would Gautier himself have despised their

contrasts in whiteness
As she sits in the great chair
Between the two indolent candles.

Causa

I JOIN these words for four people,
Some others may overhear them,
world, I am sorry for you,
You do not know these four people.

16

A Pact

I MAKE a pact with you, Walt Whitman-

I have detested you long enough.

I come to you as a grown child

Who has had a pig-headed father ;

I am old enough now to make friends.

It was you that broke the new wood,

Now is a time for carving.

We have one sap and one root

Let there be commerce between us.

17

Surgit Fama

THERE is a truce among the gods,
Kore is seen in the North
Skirting the blue-gray sea
In gilded and russet mantle.

The corn has again its mother and she, Leuconoe,
That failed never women,
Fails not the earth now.

The tricksome Hermes is here ;

He moves behind me

Eager to catch my words,

Eager to spread them with rumour ;

To set upon them his change

Crafty and subtle ;

To alter them to his purpose ;

But do thou speak true, even to the letter :

" Once more in Delos, once more is the altar

a-quiver.

Once more is the chant heard.
Once more are the never abandonedjjjgardens
Full of gossip and old tales."

18

Preference

IT is true that you say the gods are more use to

you than fairies,
But for all that I have seen you

on a high, white, noble horse.
Like some strange queen in a story.

It is odd that you should be covered with long
robes

and trailing tendrils and flowers ;
It is odd that you should be changing your face

and resembling some other woman to

plague me ;

It is odd that you should be hiding yourself
In the cloud of beautiful women who do not
concern me.

And I, who follow every seed-leaf upon the wind ?
You will say that I deserve this.

19 c 2

Dance Figure

For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee

DARK eyed,

woman of my dreams,
Ivory sandaled,

There is none like thee among the dancers,
None with swift feet.

1 have not found thee in the tents,
In the broken darkness.

I have not found thee at the well-head
Among the women with pitchers.

Thine arms are as a young sapling under the

bark;
Thy face as a river with lights.

White as an almond are thy shoulders ;
As new almonds stripped from the husk.

They guard thee not with eunuchs ;
Not with bars of copper.

20

DANCE FIGURE

Gilt turquoise and silver are in the place of thy

rest.
A brown robe, with threads of gold woven in

patterns,

hast thou gathered about thee,
O Nathat-Ikanaie, " Tree-at-the-river."

As a rillet among the sedge are thy hands upon

me ;
Thy fingers a frosted stream.

Thy maidens are white like pebbles ;
Their music about thee !

There is none like thee among the dancers ;
None with swift feet.

April

Nywpharum membra disjecta.

THREE spirits came to me
And drew me apart
To where the olive boughs
Lay stripped upon the ground :
Pale carnage beneath bright mist.

Gentildonna

SHE passed and left no quiver in the veins, who

now
Moving among the trees, and clinging

in the air she severed,
Fanning the grass she walked on then, endures :

Grey olive leaves beneath a rain-cold sky.

22

The Rest

O HELPLESS few in my country,

remnant enslaved !

Artists broken against her,
A-stray, lost in the villages,
Mistrusted, spoken-against,

Lovers of beauty, starved,
Thwarted with systems,
Helpless against the control ;

You who can not wear yourselves out

By persisting to successes,

You who can only speak,

Who can not steel yourselves into reiteration ;

You of the finer sense,
Broken against false knowledge,
You who can know at first hand,
Hated, shut in, mistrusted :

Take thought :

1 have weathered the storm,
I have beaten out my exile.

23

Les Millwin

THE little Millwins attend the Russian Ballet.
The mauve and greenish souls of the little

Millwins

Were seen lying along the upper seats
Like so many unused boas.

The turbulent and undisciplined host of art

students

The rigorous deputation from " Slade "
Was before them.
With arms exalted, with fore -arms
Crossed in great futuristic X's, the art students
Exulted, they beheld the splendours of Cleopatra.

And the little Millwins beheld these things ;
With their large and anaemic eyes they looked
out upon this configuration.

Let us therefore mention the fact,
For it seems to us worthy of record.

Further Instructions

COME, my songs, let us express our baser passions,
Let us express our envy of the man with a steady
job

and no worry about the future.
You are very idle, my songs.
I fear you will come to a bad end.
You stand about in the streets,
You loiter at the corners and bus-stops
You do next to nothing at all.

You do not even express our inner nobilities,
You will come to a very bad end.

And I?

I have gone half cracked,

I have talked to you so much that

I almost see you about me,

Insolent little beasts, shameless, devoid of
clothing !

But you, newest song of the lot,

You are not old enough to have done much

mischief,

I will get you a green coat out of China
With dragons worked upon it,
I will get you the scarlet silk trousers
From the statue of the infant Christ at Santa

Maria Novella,

Lest they say we are lacking in taste,
Or that there is no caste in this family.

25

A Song of the Degrees

KEST me with Chinese colours,
For I think the glass is evil.

II

The wind moves above the wheat
With a silver crashing,
A thin war of metal.

I have known the golden disc,
I have seen it melting above me.
I have known the stone-bright place,
The hall of clear colours.

Ill

O glass subtly evil, confusion of colours !
O light bound and bent in, O soul of the captive,
Why am I warned ? Why am I sent away ?
Why is your glitter full of curious mistrust ?
O glass subtle and cunning, powdery gold !
O filaments of amber, two-faced iridescence !

26

Ite

Go, my songs, seek your praise from the young

and from the intolerant,
Move among the lovers of perfection alone.
Seek ever to stand in the hard Sophoclean light
And take your wounds from it gladly.

Dum Capitolium Scandet

How many will come after me

singing as well as I sing, none better ;

Telling the heart of their truth

as I have taught them to tell it ;

Fruit of my seed,

my unnameable children.

Know then that I loved you from afore-time,
Clear speakers, naked in the sun, untrammelled,

To KaXoi>

EVEN in my dreams you have denied yourself to

me
And sent me only your handmaids.

27

The Study in Aesthetics

THE very small children in patched clothing,
Being smitten with an unusual wisdom,
Stopped in their play as she passed them
And cried up from their cobbles :

Guarda I Ahi, guarda ! cti e Ma ! *

But three years after this

I heard the young Dante, whose last name I do

not know
For there are, in Sirmione, twenty-eight young

Dantes and thirty -four Catulli ;

And there had been a great catch of sardines,
And his elders

Were packing them in the great wooden boxes
For the market in Brescia, and he
Leapt about, snatching at the bright fish
And getting in both of their ways ;
And in vain they commanded him to sta fermo I
And when they would not let him arrange
The fish in the boxes

He stroked those which were already arranged,
Murmuring for his own satisfaction
This identical phrase :
a 5 e be'a.

And at this I was mildly abashed.

* Bella.
28

The Beliaires

Aus meinen grossen Schmerzen
MacW ich die Jcleinen Lieder.

THE good Beliaires

Do not understand the conduct of this world's

affairs.

In fact they understood them so badly
That they have had to cross the Channel.

Nine lawyers, four counsels, five judges and three

proctors of the King,
Together with the respective wives, husbands,

sisters and heterogeneous connections of the

good Beliaires,
Met to discuss their affairs ;
But the good Beliaires have so little understood

their affairs

That now there is no one at all
Who can understand any affair of theirs. Yet
Fourteen hunters still eat in the stables of
The good Squire Bellaire ;
But these may not suffer attainder,

29

THE BELLAIRES

For they may not belong to the good Squire

Bellaire

But to his wife.
On the contrary, if they do not belong to his

wife,

He will plead

A " freedom from attainder "
For twelve horses and also for twelve boarhounds
From Charles the Fourth ;
And a further freedom for the remainder
Of horses, from Henry the Fourth.
But the judges,

Being free of mediaeval scholarship,
Will pay no attention to this,
And there will be only the more confusion,
Replevin, estoppel, espavin and what not.

Nine lawyers, four counsels, etc.,
Met to discuss their affairs,
But the sole result was bills
From lawyers to whom no one was indebted,
And even the lawyers

Were uncertain who was supposed to be indebted
to them.

Wherefore the good Squire Bellaire
Resides now at Agde and Biaucaire.
To Carcassonne, Pui, and Alais
He fareth from day to day,

30

THE BELLAIRES

Or takes the sea air
Between Marseilles
And Beziers.

And for all this I have considerable regret,
For the good Bellaires
Are very charming people.

31

Salvationists

COME, my songs, let us speak of perfection
We shall get ourselves rather disliked.

II

Ah yes, my songs, let us resurrect

The very excellent term Rusticus.

Let us apply it in all its opprobrium

To those to whom it applies.

And you may decline to make them immortal.

For we shall consider them and their state

In delicate

Opulent silence.

Ill

Come, my songs,

Let us take arms against this sea of stupidities-
Beginning with Mumpodorus ;
And against this sea of vulgarities-
Beginning with Nimmim ;
And against this sea of imbeciles
All the Bulmenian literati.

32

Arides

THE bashful Arides

Has married an ugly wife,

He was bored with his manner of life,

Indifferent and discouraged he thought he might

as
Well do this as anything else.

Saying within his heart, " I am no use to myself*
" Let her, if she wants me, take me."
He went to his doom.

The Bath Tub

As a bathtub lined with white porcelain,
When the hot water gives out or goes tepid,
So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion,
my much praised but-not-altogether-satis-
factory lady.

33

Amities

Old friends the most.

W. B. Y.

To one, on returning certain years after.

You wore the same quite correct clothing,
You took no pleasure at all in my triumphs,
You had the same old air of condescension
Mingled with a curious fear

That I, myself, might have enjoyed them.

Te voila, mon Bourrienne, you also shall be
immortal.

II

To another.

And we say good-bye to you also,
For you seem never to have discovered
That your relationship is wholly parasitic ;
Yet to our feasts you bring neither
Wit, nor good spirits, nor the pleasing attitudes
Of discipleship.

34

AMITIES

III

But you, bos arnic, we keep on,

For to you we owe a real debt :

In spite of your obvious flaws,

You once discovered a moderate chop-house.

IV

Iste fuit vir incultus,

Deo laus, quod est sepultus,

Vermes habent eius vultum

A-a-a~a A-men.
Ego autem jovialis
Gaudero contubernalis
Cwnjocunda femina.

To Dives

WHO am I to condemn you, O Dives,
I who am as much embittered
With poverty
As you are with useless riches ?

35

Ladies

Agathas
FOUR and forty lovers had Agathas in the old

days,

All of whom she refused ;
And now she turns to me seeking love,
And her hair also is turning.

Young Lady

I have fed your lar with poppies,

I have adored you for three full years ;

And now you grumble because your dress does

not fit
And because I happen to say so.

Lesbia Ilia

Memnon, Memnon, that lady
Who used to walk about amongst us
With such gracious uncertainty,
Is now wedded
To a British householder.
Lug etc, Verier es ! Lugete, Cupidinesque I

36

LADIES

Passing

Flawless as Aphrodite,

Thoroughly beautiful,

Brainless,

The faint odour of your patchouli,

Faint, almost, as the lines of cruelty about your

chin,
Assails me, and concerns me almost as little.

Coda

O MY songs,

Why do you look so eagerly and so curiously into

people's faces,
Will you find your lost dead among them ?

37

Ancora

GOOD God ! They say you are risque \

O canzonetti !

We who went out into the four A.M. of the world

Composing our albas,

We who shook off our dew with the rabbits,

We who have seen even Artemis a-binding her

sandals,

Have we ever heard the like ?
O mountains of Hellas ! !

Gather about me, Muses !

When we sat upon the granite brink in Helicon

Clothed in the tattered sunlight,

Muses with delicate shins,

O Muses with delectable knee-joints,

When we splashed and were splashed with

The lucid Castalian spray,

Had we ever such an epithet cast upon us ! !

38

A TEANSLATION

FROM THE PROVENCAL OF EN BERTRANS DE BORN.

"Dompna pois de me no'us cal"

LADY, since you care nothing for me,

And since you have shut me away from you

Causelessly,

I know not where to go seeking,

For certainly

I will never again gather

Joy so rich, and if I find not ever

A lady with look so speaking

To my desire, worth yours whom I have lost,

I'll have no other love at any cost.

And since I could not find a peer to you,
Neither one so fair, nor of such heart,
So eager and alert,
Nor with such art
In attire, nor so gay
Nor with gift so bountiful and so true,

39

"DOMPNA POIS DE ME NO'US CAL"

I will go out a-searching,
Culling from each a fair trait
To make me a borrowed lady
Till I again find you ready.

Bels Cembelins, I take of you your colour,

For it's your own, and your glance

Where love is,

A proud thing I do here,

For, as to colour and eyes

I shall have missed nothing at all,

Having yours.

I ask of Midons Aelis (of Montfort)

Her straight speech free-running,

That my phantom lack not in cunning.

At Chalais of the Viscountess, I would

That she give me outright

Her two hands and her throat,

So take I my road

lo Rochechouart,

Swift-foot to my Lady Anhes,

Seeing that Tristan's lady Iseutz had never

Such grace of locks, I do ye to wit,

Though she'd the far fame for it.

Of Audiart at Malemort,
Though she with a full heart
Wish me ill,

I'd have her form that's laced

40

"DOMPNA POIS DE ME NO'US CAL

So cunningly,

Without blemish, for her love

Breaks not nor turns aside.

I of Miels-de-ben demand

Her straight fresh body,

She is so supple and young,

Her robes can but do her wrong.

Her white teeth, of the Lady Faidita

I ask, and the fine courtesy

She hath to welcome one,

And such replies she lavishes

Within her nest ;

Of Bels Mirals, the rest,

Tall stature and gaiety,

To make these avail

She knoweth well, betide

No change nor turning aside.

Ah, Bels Senher, Maent, at last
I ask naught from you,
Save that I have such hunger for
This phantom

As I've for you, such flame-lap,
And yet I'd rather
Ask of you than hold another,
Mayhap, right close and kissed.
Ah, lady, why have you cast
Me out, knowing you hold me so fast !

41

The Coming of War: Actaeon

AN image of Lethe,

and the fields
Full of faint light

but golden,
Gray cliffs,

and beneath them
A sea
Harsher than granite,

unstill, never ceasing ;
High forms

with the movement of gods,
Perilous aspect ;

And one said :
" This is Actaeon."

Actaeon of golden greaves !

Over fair meadows,

Over the cool face of that field,

Unstill. ever moving,

Hosts of an ancient people,

The silent cortege.

After Ch'u Yuan

I WILL get me to the wood

Where the gods walk garlanded in wistaria,

By the silver blue flood

move others with ivory cars.
There come forth many maidens

to gather grapes for the leopards, my friend,
For there are leopards drawing the cars.

I will walk in the glade,
I will come out of the new thicket
and accost the procession of maidens.

Liu Ch'e

THE rustling of the silk is discontinued,
Dust drifts over the court-yard,
There is no sound of foot-fall, and the leaves
Scurry into heaps and lie still,
And she the rejoicer of the heart is beneath
them:

A wet leaf that clings to the threshold.

43

Fan-piece, for her Imperial Lord

FAN of white silk,

clear as frost on the grass-blade,
You also are laid aside.

Ts'ai Chi'h

THE petals fall in the fountain,

the orange-coloured rose-leaves.
Their ochre clings to the stone. v

44

In a Station of the Metro

THE apparition of these faces in the crowd ;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Alba

As cool as the pale wet leaves

of lily-of-the-valley
She lay beside me in the dawn.

Heather

THE black panther treads at my side,

And above my fingers

There float the petal-like flames.

The milk-white girls
Unbend from the holly-trees,
And their snow-white leopard
Watches to follow our trace.

45

The Faun

HA ! sir, I have seen you sniffing and snoozling
about

among my flowers.

And what, pray, do you know about horticulture,

you capriped ?

" Come, Auster, come, Apeliota,
And see the faun in our garden.
But if you move or speak
This thing will run at you
And scare itself to spasms."

Pervigilium

THE gilded phaloi of the crocuses

are thrusting at the spring air.
Here is there naught of dead gods
But a procession of festival,
A procession, O Giulio Romano,
Fit for your spirit to dwell in.
Dione, your nights are upon us.

The dew is upon the leaf.
The night about us is restless.

46

The Encounter

ALL the while they were talking the new morality

Her eyes explored me.

And when I arose to go

Her fingers were like the tissue

Of a Japanese paper napkin.

Tempora

Io ! lo ! Tamuz !

The Dryad stands in my court-yard

With plaintive, querulous crying.

(Tamuz. Io ! Tamuz !)

Oh, no, she is not crying : " Tamuz."

She says, " May my poems be printed this week ?

The god Pan is afraid to ask you,

May my poems be printed this week ? "

47

Black Slippers: Bellotti

AT the table beyond us

With her little suede slippers off,

With her white-stocking' d feet

Carefully kept from the floor by a napkin,

She converses :

Connaissez-vous Ostende ?
The gurgling Italian lady on the other side of the

restaurant

Replies with a certain hauteur,
But I await with patience
To see how Celestine will re-enter her slippers.
She re-enters them with a groan.

Society

THE family position was waning,
And on this account the little Aurelia,
Who had laughed on eighteen summers,
Now bears the palsied contact of Phidippus.

48

Image from D'Orleans

YOTJNG men riding in the street
In the bright new season
Spur without reason,
Causing their steeds to leap.

And at the pace they keep
Their horses' armoured feet
Strike sparks from the cobbled street
In the bright new season.

Papyrus

Spring. . .
Too long. . .
Gongula. . .

49 E

"lone, Dead the Long Year"

EMPTY are the ways,

Empty are the ways of this land

And the flowers

Bend over with heavy heads.
They bend in vain.
Empty are the ways of this land

Where lone
Walked once, and now does not walk

But seems like a person just gone.

Shop Girl

FOR a moment she rested against me
Like a swallow half blown to the wall,
And they talk of Swinburne's women,
And the shepherdess meeting with Guido,
And the harlots of Baudelaire.

50

To Formianus' Young Lady Friend

AFTER VALERIUS CATULLUS

ALL Hail ! young lady with a nose

by no means too small,
With a foot unbeautiful,

and with eyes that are not black,
With fingers that are not long, and with a mouth

undry,

And with a tongue by no means too elegant,
You are the friend of Formianus, the vendor of

cosmetics,

And they call you beautiful in the province,
And you are even compared to Lesbia,

O most unfortunate age !

51 E 2

Tame Cat

" IT rests me to be among beautiful women.
Why should one always lie about such matters ?

I repeat :

It rests me to converse with beautiful women

Even though we talk nothing but nonsense,

The purring of the invisible antennae
Is both stimulating and delightful."

L'Art, 1910

GREEN arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,
Crushed strawberries ! Come, let us feast our
eyes.

52

Simulacra

WHY does the horse-faced lady of just the un-
mentionable age

Walk down Longacre reciting Swinburne to herself,
inaudibly ?

Why does the small child in the soiled-white
imitation fur coat

Crawl in the very black gutter beneath the grape
stand ?

Why does the really handsome young woman
approach me in Sackville Street

Undeterred by the manifest age of my trappings ?

Women Before a Shop

THE gew-gaws of false amber and false turquoise

attract them.
" Like to like nature " : these agglutinous

yellows !

53

Epilogue

O CHANSONS foregoing
You were a seven days' wonder,
When you came out in the magazines
You created considerable stir in Chicago,

And now you are stale and worn out,
You're a very depleted fashion,
A hoop-skirt, a calash,
An homely, transient antiquity.

Only emotion remains.

Your emotions ?

Are those of a maitre-de-cafe.

54

The Social Order

I

THIS government official,

Whose wife is several years his senior,

Has such a caressing air

When he shakes hands with young ladies.

II

(Pompes Funebres)

This old lady,

Who was " so old that she was an atheist,"

Is now surrounded

By six candles and a crucifix,

While the second wife of a nephew

Makes hay with the things in her house.

Her two cats

Go before her into Avernus ;

A sort of chloroformed suttee,

And it is to be hoped that their spirits will walk

With their tails up,

And with a plaintive, gentle mewing,

For it is certain that she has left on this earth

No sound

Save a squabble of female connections.

55

The Tea Shop

THE girl in the tea shop

is not so beautiful as she was,
The August has worn against her.
She does not get up the stairs so eagerly,
Yes, she also will turn middle-aged,
And the glow of youth that she spread about us

as she brought us our muffins
Will be spread about us no longer.

She also will turn middle-aged,

56

Epitaphs

Fu I

FIT I loved the high cloud and the hill,
Alas, he died of alcohol

Li Po

And Li Po also died drunk.
He tried to embrace a moon
In the Yellow River.

Our Contemporaries

WHEN the Taihaitian princess
Heard that he had decided,

She rushed out into the sunlight and swarmed up
a cocoanut palm tree,

But he returned to this island

And wrote ninety Petrarchan sonnets.

NOTE. II s'agit d'un jeune poete qui a suivi le culte de
Gauguin jusqu'a Tahiti meme (et qui vit encore). fitant
fort bel homme, quand la princesse bistre entendit qu'il voulait
lui accorder ses faveurs elle montra son allegresse de la fa$on
dont nous venons de parler. Malheureusement ses poemes ne
sont remplis que de ses propres subjectivites, style Victorien de
la " Georgian Anthology."

57

Ancient Wisdom, Rather Cosmic

SO-SHTJ dreamed,

And having dreamed that he was a bird, a bee,

and a butterfly,
He was uncertain why he should try to feel like

anything else,

Hence his contentment.

The Three Poets

CANDIDIA has taken a new lover

And three poets are gone into mourning.

The first has written a long elegy to " Chloris,"

To " Chloris chaste and cold," his " only Chloris.'

The second has written a sonnet

upon the mutability of woman,
And the third writes an epigram to Candidia.

58

The Gipsy

" Est-ce que vous avez vu des autres des camarades avec des
singes ou des ours ? "

A Stray Gipsy A.D. 1912.

THAT was the top of the walk, when he said :
"Have you seen any others, any of our lot,
"With apes or bears ? "

A brown upstanding fellow
Not like the half-castes,

up on the wet road near Clermont.
The wind came, and the rain,
And mist clotted about the trees in the valley,
And I'd the long ways behind me,

gray Aries and Biaucaire,
And he said, " Have you seen any of our lot ? "

I'd seen a lot of his lot ...

ever since Rhodez,
Coming down from the fair

of St. John,
With caravans, but never an ape or a bear.

59

The Game of Chess

DOGMATIC STATEMENT CONCERNING THE GAME OF CHESS:
THEME FOR A SERIES OF PICTURES

RED knights, brown bishops, bright queens,
Striking the board, falling in strong " L " s of

colour,
Reaching and striking in angles,

holding lines in one colour.
This board is alive with light ;

these pieces are living in form,
Their moves break and reform the pattern:

Luminous green from the rooks,
Clashing with " X " s of queens,

looped with the knight-leaps.

" Y " pawns, cleaving, embanking !

Whirl ! Centripetal ! Mate ! King down in the

vortex.
Clash, leaping of bands, straight strips of hard

colour,
Blocked lights working in. Escapes. Renewal of

contest.

60

Provincia Deserta

AT Rochecoart,
Where the hills part

in three ways,

And three valleys, full of winding roads,
Fork out to south and north,
There is a place of trees . . . gray with lichen,
I have walked there

thinking of old days.
At Chalais

is a pleached arbour ;
Old pensioners and old protected women
Have the right there

it is charity.
I have crept over old rafters,

peering down
Over the Dronne,

over a stream full of lilies.
Eastward the road lies,

Aubeterre is eastward,
With a garrulous old man at the inn.

61

PROVINCIA DESERTA

I know the roads in that place :
Mareuil to the north-east,

La Tour,

There are three keeps near Mareuil,
And an old woman,

glad to hear Arnaut,
Glad to lend one dry clothing.

I have walked

into Perigord,

I have seen the torch-flames, high-leaping,
Painting the front of that church,
And, under the dark, whirling laughter.
I have looked back over the stream

and seen the high building,
Seen the long minarets, the white shafts.
I have gone in Ribeyrac

and in Sarlat,

I have climbed rickety stairs, heard talk of Croy,
Walked over En Bertran's old layout,
Have seen Narbonne, and Cahors and Chalus,
Have seen Excideuil, carefully fashioned. v

I have said :

" Here such a one walked.
" Here Cceur-de-Lion was slain.

" Here was good singing.
" Here one man hastened his step.

" Here one lay panting."
62

PROVINCIA DESERTA

I have looked south from Hautefort,

thinking of Montaignac, southward.
I have lain in Rocafixada,

level with sunset,
Have seen the copper come down

tinging the mountains,

I have seen the fields, pale, clear as an emerald,
Sharp peaks, high spurs, distant castles.
I have said : " The old roads have lain here.
66 Men have gone by such and such valleys
" Where the great halls are closer together."
I have seen Foix on its rock, seen Toulouse, and

Aries greatly altered,
I have seen the ruined " Dorata."

I have said :
" Riquier ! Guido."

I have thought of the second Troy,
Some little prized place in Auvergnat :
Two men tossing a coin, one keeping a castle,
One set on the highway to sing.

He sang a woman.
Auvergne rose to the song ;

The Dauphin backed him.
" The castle to Austors ! "

" Pieire kept the singing
" A fair man and a pleasant."

He won the lady,

Stole her away for himself, kept her against
armed force :

63

PROVTNCIA DESERTA

So ends that story.

That age is gone ;

Pieire de Maensac is gone.

I have walked over these roads ;

I have thought of them living.

CATHAY

FOR THE MOST PART FROM THE CHINESE OF RIHAKU,

FROM THE NOTES OF THE LATE ERNEST

FENOLLOSA, AND THE DECIPHERINGS

OF THE PROFESSORS MORI

AND ARIGA

Song of the Bowmen of Shu

HERE we are, picking the first fern-shoots

And saying : When shall we get back to our

country ?
Here we are because we have the Ken-nin for our

foemen,

We have no comfort because of these Mongols.
We grub the soft fern-shoots,
When anyone says " Return," the others are full

of sorrow.
Sorrowful minds, sorrow is strong, we are hungry

and thirsty.
Our defence is not yet made sure, no one can let

his friend return.
We grub the old fern-stalks.
We say : Will we be let to go back in October ?
There is no ease in royal affairs, we have no

comfort.
Our sorrow is bitter, but we would not return to

our country.

What flower has come into blossom ?
Whose chariot ? The General's.

67

SONG OF THE BOWMEN OF SHU

Horses, his horses even, are tired. They were
strong.

We have no rest, three battles a month.

By heaven, his horses are tired.

The generals are on them, the soldiers are by
them

The horses are well trained, the generals have
ivory arrows and quivers ornamented with fish-
skin.

The enemy is swift, we must be careful.

When we set out, the willows were drooping with
spring,

We come back in the snow,

We go slowly, we are hungry and thirsty,

Our mind is full of sorrow, who will know of our
grief ?

By Bunno.
Very early.

68

The Beautiful Toilet

BLUE, blue is the grass about the river

And the willows have overfilled the close garden.

And within, the mistress, in the midmost of her

youth,

White, white of face, hesitates, passing the door.
Slender, she puts forth a slender hand,

And she was a courtezan in the old days,
And she has married a sot,
Who now goes drunkenly out
And leaves her too much alone.

By Met Sheng.
B.C. 140.

69

The River Song

THIS boat is of shato-wood, and its gunwales are

cut magnolia,
Musicians with jewelled flutes and with pipes of

gold

Fill full the sides in rows, and our wine
Is rich for a thousand cups.
We carry singing girls, drift with the drifting

water,

Yet Sennin needs

A yellow stork for a charger, and all our seamen
Would follow the white gulls or ride them.
Kutsu's prose song
Hangs with the sun and moon.

King So's terraced palace

is now but a barren hill,
But I draw pen on this barge
Causing the five peaks to tremble,
And I have joy in these words

like the joy of blue islands.
(If glory could last forever

70

THE RIVER SONG

Then the waters of Han would flow northward.)

And I have moped in the Emperor's garden,
awaiting an order-to-write !

I looked at the dragon-pond, with its willow-
coloured water

Just reflecting the sky's tinge,

And heard the five-score nightingales aimlessly
singing.

The eastern wind brings the green colour into the

island grasses at Yei-shu,
The purple house and the crimson are full of

Spring softness.
South of the pond the willow-tips are half-blue

and bluer,

Their cords tangle in mist, against the brocade-
like palace.
Vine-strings a hundred feet long hang down from

carved railings,
And high over the willows, the fine birds sing to

each other, and listen,
Crying " Kwan, Kuan," for the early wind, and

the feel of it.
The wind bundles itself into a bluish cloud and

wanders off.
Over a thousand gates, over a thousand doors are

the sounds of spring singing,
And the Emperor is at Ko.

Five clouds hang aloft, bright on the purple sky,

71 G 2 *

THE RIVER SONG

The imperial guards come forth from the golden
house with their armour a-g] earning.

The Emperor in his jewelled car goes out to
inspect his flowers,

He goes out to Hori, to look at the wing-flapping
storks,

He returns by way of Sei rock, to hear the new
nightingales,

For the gardens at Jo -run are full of new nightin-
gales,

Their sound is mixed in this flute,

Their voice is in the twelve pipes here.

By EiJiaku.
8th century A.D.

72

The River-Merchant's Wife: a
Letter

WHILE my hair was still cut straight across my

forehead

I played about the front gate, pulling flowers
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue

plums.

And we went on living in the village of Chokan :
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.

I never laughed, being bashful.

Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.

Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,

I desired my dust to be mingled with yours

Forever and forever, and forever.

Why should I climb the look out ?

At sixteen you departed,

You went into far Ku-to-Yen, by the river of
swirling eddies,

73

THE RIVER MERCHANT'S WIFE

And you have been gone five months.

The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.

By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different

mosses,

Too deep to clear them away !
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with

August

Over the grass in the West garden,
They hurt me,
I grow older,
If you are coming down through the narrows of

the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you,

As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

By Rihaku.

74

The Jewel Stairs' Grievance

THE jewelled steps are already quite white with

dew,
It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze

stockings,

And I let down the crystal curtain
And watch the moon through the clear autumn.

By EihaJcu.

NOTE. Jewel stairs, therefore a palace. Grievance, there-
fore there is something to complain of. Gauze stockings, there-
fore a court lady, not a servant who complains. Clear autumn,
therefore he has no excuse on account of weather. Also she has
come early, for the dew has not merely whitened the stairs, but
has soaked her stockings. The poem is especially prized because
she utters no direct reproach.

75

Poem by the Bridge at Ten-Shin

MARCH has come to the bridge head,

Peach boughs and apricot boughs hang over a

thousand gates,

At morning there are flowers to cut the heart,
And evening drives them on the eastward-flowing

waters.
Petals are on the gone waters and on the going,

And on the back-swirling eddies,
But to-day's men are not the men of the old days,
Though they hang in the same way over the

bridge-rail.

The sea's colour moves at the dawn

And the princes still stand in rows, about the

throne,

And the moon falls over the portals of Sei-go-yo,
And clings to the walls and the gate-top.
With head gear glittering against the cloud and

sun,
The lords go forth from the court, and into far

borders.

76

POEM BY THE BRIDGE AT TEN-SHIN

They ride upon dragon-like horses,

Upon horses with head-trappings of yellow metal.

And the streets make way for their passage.

Haughty their passing,
Haughty their steps as they go into great

banquets,

To high halls and curious food,
To the perfumed air and girls dancing,
To clear flutes and clear singing ;
To the dance of the seventy couples ;
To the mad chase through the gardens.
Night and day are given over to pleasure
And they think it will last a thousand autumns,

Unwearying autumns.

For them the yellow dogs howl portents in vain,
And what are they compared to the lady
Riokushu,

That was cause of hate !
Who among them is a man like Han-rei

Who departed alone with his mistress,
With her hair unbound, and he his own skiffs-
man!

By Rihaku.

77

Lament of the Frontier Guard

the North Gate, the wind blows full of sand,
Lonely from the beginning of time until now !
Trees fall, the grass goes yellow with autumn.
I climb the towers and towers

to watch out the barbarous land :
Desolate castle, the sky, the wide desert.
There is no wall left to this village.
Bones white with a thousand frosts,
High heaps, covered with trees and grass ;
Who brought this to pass ?
Who has brought the flaming imperial anger ?
Who has brought the army with drums and with

kettle-drums ?
Barbarous kings.
A gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous

autumn,
A turmoil of wars-men, spread over the middle

kingdom,

Three hundred and sixty thousand,
And sorrow, sorrow like rain.
Sorrow to go, and sorrow, sorrow returning,

78

LAMENT OF THE FRONTIER GUARD

Desolate, desolate fields,

And no children of warfare upon them,

No longer the men for offence and defence.
Ah, how shall you know the dreary sorrow at the

North Gate,

With Rihoku's name forgotten,
And we guardsmen fed to the tigers.

By EiJiaku.

79

Exile's Letter

To So-Kin of Rakuyo, ancient friend, Chancellor

of Gen.

Now I remember that you built me a special tavern
By the south side of the bridge at Ten-Shin.
With yellow gold and white jewels, we paid for

songs and laughter
And we were drunk for month on month, forgetting

the kings and princes.
Intelligent men came drifting in from the sea and

from the west border,
And with them, and with you especially
There was nothing at cross purpose,
And they made nothing of sea-crossing or of

mountain crossing,

If only they could be of that fellowship,
And we all spoke out our hearts and minds, and

without regret.

And then I was sent off to South Wei,

smothered in laurel groves,
And you to the north of Raku-hoku,
Till we had nothing but thoughts and memories
in common.

80

EXILE'S LETTER

And then, when separation had come to its

worst,

We met, and travelled into Sen-Go,
Through all the thirty-six folds of the turning

and twisting waters,

Into a valley of the thousand bright flowers,
That was the first valley ;
And into ten thousand valleys full of voices and

pine- winds.

And with silver harness and reins of gold,
Out come the East of Kan foreman and his

company.
And there came also the " True man " of Shi-yo

to meet me,

Playing on a jewelled mouth-organ.
In the storied houses of San-Ko they gave us

more Sennin music,
Many instruments, like the sound of young

phoenix broods.
The foreman of Kan Chu, drunk, danced

because his long sleeves wouldn't

keep still

With that music playing.
And I, wrapped in brocade, went to sleep with

my head on his lap,
And my spirit so high it was all over the

heavens,
And before the end of the day we were scattered

like stars, or rain.

81

EXILE'S LETTER

I had to be off to So, far away over the waters,
You back to your river-bridge.

And your father, who was brave as a leopard,
Was governor in Hei Shu, and put down the

barbarian rabble.
And one May he had you send for me,

despite the long distance.
And what with broken wheels and so on, I won't

say it wasn't hard going,
Over roads twisted like sheep's guts.
And I was still going, late in the year,

in the cutting wind from the North,
And thinking how little you cared for the

cost,

and you caring enough to pay it.
And what a reception :
Red jade cups, food well set on a blue jewelled

table,
And I was drunk, and had no thought of

returning.
And you would walk out with me to the western

corner of the castle,
To the dynastic temple, with water about it clear

as blue jade,

With boats floating, and the sound of mouth-
organs and drums,
With ripples like dragon-scales, going grass green

on the water,

82

EXILE'S LETTER

Pleasure lasting, with courtezans, going and com-
ing without hindrance,

With the willow flakes falling like snow,

And the vermilioned girls getting drunk about
sunset,

And the water a hundred feet deep reflecting
green eyebrows

Eyebrows painted green are a fine sight in
young moonlight,

Gracefully painted

And the girls singing back at each other,

Dancing in transparent brocade,

And the wind lifting the song, and inter-
rupting it,

Tossing it up under the clouds.

And all this comes to an end.

t

And is not again to be met with.
I went up to the court for examination,
Tried Layu's luck, offered the Choyo song,
And got no promotion,

and went back to the East Mountains

white-headed.
And once again, later, we met at the South

bridge-head.
And then the crowd broke up, you went north to

San palace,
And if you ask how I regret that parting :

It is like the flowers falling at Spring's end
Confused, whirled in a tangle.
83

EXILE'S LETTER

What is the use of talking, and there is no end of

talking,

There is no end of things in the heart.
I call in the boy,
Have him sit on his knees here

To seal this,
And send it a thousand miles, thinking.

By Rihaku.

84

From EihaJcu
FOUR POEMS OF DEPARTURE

Light rain is on the light dust

The willows of the inn-yard

Will be going greener and greener,

But you, Sir, had better take wine ere your departure,

For you will have no friends about you

When you come to the gates of Go.

Separation on the River Kiang

KO-JIN goes west from Ko-kaku-ro,

The smoke-flowers are blurred over the river.

His lone sail blots the far sky.

And now I see only the river,

The long Kiang, reaching heaven.

Taking Leave of a Friend

BLUE mountains to the north of the walls,
White river winding about them ;
Here we must make separation

85 H

FOUR POEMS OF DEPARTURE

And go out through a thousand miles of dead

grass.

Mind like a floating wide cloud.
Sunset like the parting of old acquaintances
Who bow over their clasped hands at a distance.
Our horses neigh to each other
as we are departing.

Leave-taking near Shoku

" Sanso, King of Shoku, built roads."

THEY say the roads of Sanso are steep,
Sheer as the mountains.
The walls rise in a man's face,
Clouds grow out of the hill

at his horse's bridle.

Sweet trees are on the paved way of the Shin,
Their trunks burst through the paving,
And freshets are bursting their ice

in the midst of Shoku, a proud city.

Men's fates are already set,

There is no need of asking diviners.

86

FOUR POEMS OF DEPARTURE

The City of Choan

THE phoenix are at play on their terrace.
The phoenix are gone, the river flows on alone.
Flowers and grass
Cover over the dark path

where lay the dynastic house of the Go.
The bright cloths and bright caps of Shin
Are now the base of old hills.

The Three Mountains fall through the far heaven,
The isle of White Heron

splits the two streams apart.
Now the high clouds cover the sun
And I can not see Choan afar
And I am sad.

87 H 2

South-Folk in Cold Country

THE Dai horse neighs against the bleak wind of

Etsu,
The birds of Etsu have no love for En, in the

north,

Emotion is born out of habit.
Yesterday we went out of the Wild-Goose gate,
To-day from the Dragon-Pen.*
Surprised. Desert turmoil. Sea sun.
Flying snow bewilders the barbarian heaven.
Lice swarm like ants over our accoutrements.
Mind and spirit drive on the feathery banners.
Hard fight gets no reward.
Loyalty is hard to explain.
Who will be sorry for General Rishogu,

the swift moving,
Whose white head is lost for this province ?

* I.e., we have been warring from one end of the empire to
the other, now east, now west, on each border.

88

Sennin Poem by Kakuhaku

THE red and green kingfishers

flash between the orchids and clover,
One bird casts its gleam on another.

Green vines hang through the high forest,
They weave a whole roof to the mountain,
The lone man sits with shut speech,
He purrs and pats the clear strings.

He throws his heart up through the sky,
He bites through the flower pistil

and brings up a fine fountain.
The red-pine-tree god looks on him and wonders.
He rides through the purple smoke to visit the

sennin,

He takes " Floating HiU " * by the sleeve,
He claps his hand on the back of the great water

sennin.

But you, you dam'd crowd of gnats,
Can you even tell the age of a turtle ?

* Name of a sennin.

89

A Ballad of the Mulberry Road

(Fenollosa MSS., very early.)

THE sun rises in south east corner of things
To look on the tall house of the Shin
For they have a daughter named Rafu,

(pretty girl)

She made the name for herself : " Gauze Veil,"
For she feeds mulberries to silkworms,

She gets them by the south wall of the
town.

With green strings she makes the warp of her

basket,
She makes the shoulder-straps of her basket

from the boughs of Katsura,
And she piles her hair up on the left side of her

head-piece.

Her earrings are made of pearl,
Her underskirt is of green pattern-silk,
Her overskirt is the same silk dyed in purple,
And when men going by look on Rafu
They set down their burdens,
They stand and twirl their moustaches.

90

Old Idea of Choan by Rosoriu

I.

THE narrow streets cut into the wide highway at

Choan,
Dark oxen, white horses,

drag on the seven coaches with outriders.
The coaches are perfumed wood,
The jewelled chair is held up at the crossway,
Before the royal lodge

a glitter of golden saddles, awaiting the

princess,

They eddy before the gate of the barons.
The canopy embroidered with dragons

drinks in and casts back the sun.

Evening comes.

The trappings are bordered with mist.
The hundred cords of mist are spread through

and double the trees,
Night birds, and night women,

spread out their sounds through the
gardens.

91

OLD IDEA OF CHOAN BY ROSORIU

II.

Birds with flowery wing, hovering butterflies

crowd over the thousand gates,
Trees that glitter like jade,

terraces tinged with silver,
The seed of a myriad hues,
A net-work of arbours and passages and covered

ways,
Double towers, winged roofs,

border the net-work of ways :
A place of felicitous meeting.
Riu's house stands out on the sky,

with glitter of colour
As Butei of Kan had made the high golden lotus

to gather his dews,

Before it another house which I do not know :
How shall we know all the friends

whom we meet on strange roadways ?

92

To-Em-Mei's "The Unmoving Cloud'

" Wet springtime," says To-em-mei,

"Wet spring in the garden."

I.

THE clouds have gathered, and gathered,
and the rain falls and falls,

The eight ply of the heavens

are all folded into one darkness,

And the wide, flat road stretches out.

I stop in my room toward the East, quiet, quiet,

I pat my new cask of wine.

My friends are estranged, or far distant,

I bow my head and stand still.

II

Bain, rain, and the clouds have gathered,
The eight ply of the heavens are darkness,
The flat land is turned into river.

" Wine, wine, here is wine ! "
I drink by my eastern window.
I think of talking and man,
And no boat, no carriage, approaches.

93

TO-EM-MErS "THE UNMOVING CLOUD"

III

The trees in my east-looking garden

are bursting out with new twigs,
They try to stir new affection,

And men say the sun and moon keep on moving
because they can't find a soft seat.

The birds flutter to rest in my tree,

and I think I have heard them saying,
" It is not that there are no other men
But we like this fellow the best,
But however we long to speak
He can not know of our sorrow."

T'ao Yuan Ming.
A.D. 365-427.

END OF CATHAY

94

Near Perigord

A Perigord, pres del muralh

Tan que i puosch 'om gitar ab maTh.

YOU'D have men's hearts up from the dust

And tell their secrets, Messire Cino,

Right enough ? Then read between the lines

of Uc St. Ore,
Solve me the riddle, for you know the tale.

Bertrans, En Bertrans, left a fine canzone :
" Maent, I love you, you have turned me out.
The voice at Montf ort, Lady Agnes' hair,
Bel Miral's stature, the vicountess' throat,
Set all together, are not worthy of you. . ."
And all the while you sing out that canzone,
Think you that Maent lived at Montaignac,
One at Chalais, another at Malemort
Hard over Brive for every lady a castle,
Each place strong.

Oh, is it easy enough ?
Tairiran held hall in Montaignac,

95

NEAR PERIGORD

His brother-in-law was all there was of power
In Perigord, and this good union
Gobbled all the land, and held it later
for some hundreds years.
And our En Bertrans was in Altafort,
Hub of the wheel, the stirrer-up of strife,
As caught by Dante in the last wallow of hell
The headless trunk " that made its head a lamp."
For separation wrought out separation,
And he who set the strife between brother and

brother

And had his way with the old English king,
Viced in such torture for the " counterpass."

How would you live, with neighbours set about

you

Poictiers and Brive, untaken Rochechouart,
Spread like the finger-tips of one frail hand ;
And you on that great mountain of a palm
Not a neat ledge, not Foix between its streams,
But one huge back half -covered up with pine,
Worked for and snatched from the string-purse of

Born
The four round towers, four brothers mostly

fools :

What could he do but play the desperate chess,
And stir old grudges ?

" Pawn your castles, lords !
Let the Jews pay."

96

NEAR PERIGORD

And the great scene
(That, maybe, never happened !)

Beaten at last,
Before the hard old king :

" Your son, ah, since he died
My wit and worth are cobwebs brushed aside
In the full flare of grief. Do what you will."

Take the whole man, and ravel out the story.
He loved this lady in castle Montaignac ?
The castle flanked him he had need of it.
You read to-day, how long the overlords of

Perigord,
The Talleyrands, have held the place, it was no

transient fiction.
And Maent failed him ? Or saw through the

scheme ?

And all his net-like thought of new alliance ?
Chalais is high, a-level with the poplars.
Its lowest stones just meet the valley tips
Where the low Dronne is filled with water-lilies.
And Rochecouart can match it, stronger yet,
The very spur's end, built on sheerest cliff,
And Malemort keeps its close hold on Brive,
While Born his own close purse, his rabbit warren,
His subterranean chamber with a dozen doors,
A-bristle with antennae to feel roads,
To sniff the traffic into Perigord.

97

NEAR PERIGORD

And that hard phalanx, that unbroken line,
The ten good miles from thence to Maent's castle,
All of his flank how could he do without her ?
And all the road to Cahors, to Toulouse ?
What would he do without her ?

" Papiol,

Go forthright singing Anhes, Cembelins.
There is a throat ; ah, there are two white hands ;
There is a trellis full of early roses,
And all my heart is bound about with love.
Where am I come with compound flatteries
What doors are open to fine compliment ? "
And every one half jealous of Maent ?
He wrote the catch to pit their jealousies
Against her, give her pride in them ?

Take his own speech, make what you will of it
And still the knot, the first knot, of Maent ?

Is it a love poem ? Did he sing of war ?
Is it an intrigue to run subtly out,
Born of a jongleur's tongue, freely to pass
Up and about and in and out the land,
Mark him a craftsman and a strategist ?
(St. Leider had done as much at Polhonac,
Singing a different stave, as closely hidden.)
Oh, there is precedent, legal tradition,
To sing one thing when your song means another,

98

NEAR PERIGORD

" Et albirar ab lor bordon "

Eoix' count knew that. What is Sir Bertrans'
singing ?

Maent, Maent, and yet again Maent,

Or war and broken heaumes and politics ?

II

End fact. Try fiction, Let us say we see
En Bertrans, a tower-room at Hautefort,
Sunset, the ribbon-like road lies, in red cross-light,
South toward Montaignac, and he bends at a

table
Scribbling, swearing between his teeth, by his left

hand

Lie little strips of parchment covered over,
Scratched and erased with al and ochaisos.
Testing his list of rhymes, a lean man ? Bilious ?
With a red straggling beard ?
And the green cat's-eye lifts toward Montaignac.

Or take his "magnet" singer setting out,
Dodging his way past Aubeterre, singing at
Chalais

In the vaulted hall,
Or, by a lichened tree at Rochecouart
Aimlessly watching a hawk above the valleys,
Waiting his turn in the mid -summer evening,

99

NEAR PERIGORD

Thinking of Aelis, whom he loved heart and

soul . . .

To find her half alone, Montfort away,
And a brown, placid, hated woman visiting her,
Spoiling his visit, with a year before the next one.
Little enough ?
Or carry him forward. " Go through all the

courts,
My Magnet," Bertrand had said.

We came to Ventadour

In the mid love court, he sings out the canzon,
No one hears save Arrimon Luc D'Esparo
No one hears aught save the gracious sound of

compliments.

Sir Arrimon counts on his fingers, Montfort,
Rochecouart, Chalais, the rest, the tactic,
Malemort, guesses beneath, sends word to Cceur

de Lion :

The compact, de Born smoked out, trees felled

About his castle, cattle driven out !

Or no one sees it, and En Bertrans prospered ?

And ten years after, or twenty, as you will,
Arnaut and Richard lodge beneath Chalus :
The dull round towers encroaching on the field,
The tents tight drawn, horses at tether
Further and out of reach, the purple night,

100

NEAR PERIGORD

The crackling of small fires, the bannerets,
The lazy leopards on the largest banner,
Stray gleams on hanging mail, an armourer's torch-
flare
Melting on steel.

And in the quietest space
They probe old scandals, say de Born is dead ;
And we've the gossip (skipped six hundred years).
Richard shall die to-morrow leave him there
Talking of trobar clus with Daniel.
And the "best craftsman" sings out his friend's

song,

Envies its vigour . . . and deplores the technique,
Dispraises his own skill ? That's as you will.
And they discuss the dead man,
Plantagenet puts the riddle : " Did he love her ? "
And Arnaut parries : " Did he love your sister ?
True, he has praised her, but in some opinion
He wrote that praise only to show he had
The favour of your party, had been well received."

" You knew the man."

" You knew the man."

"I am an artist, you have tried both metiers."
66 You were born near him."

"Do we know our friends ? "
" Say that he saw the castles, say that he loved
Maent ! "

101 i

NEAR PERIGORD

" Say that he loved her, does it solve the riddle ?'
End the discussion, Richard goes out next day
And gets a quarrel-bolt shot through his vizard,
Pardons the bowman, dies,

Ends our discussion. Arnaut ends
" In sacred odour" (that's apocryphal!)
And we can leave the talk till Dante writes :

Surely I saw, and still before my eyes

Goes on that headless trunk, that bears for light

Its own head swinging, gripped by the dead hair,

And like a swinging lamp that says, "Ah me !

I severed men, my head and heart

Ye see here severed, my life's counterpart"

Or take En Bertrans ?

Ill

Ed eran due in uno, ed uno in due.
Inferno, XXVIII, 125.

" Bewildering spring, and by the Auvezere
Poppies and day's-eyes in the green email
Rose over us ; and we knew all that stream,
And our two horses had traced out the valleys ;
Knew the low flooded lands squared out with

poplars,

In the young days when the deep sky befriended.

102

NEAR PERIGORD

And great wings beat above us in the twilight,
And the great wheels in heaven
Bore us together . . . surging . . . and apart . . .
Believing we should meet with lips and hands.

High, high and sure . . . and then the counter-
thrust :

* Why do you love me ? Will you always love
me?

But I am like the grass, I can not love you.'

Or, * Love, and I love and love you,

And hate your mind, not you, your soul, your
hands.'

So to this last estrangement, Tairiran !

There shut up in his castle, Tairiran's,
She who had nor ears nor tongue save in her

hands,

Gone ah, gone untouched, unreachable !
She who could never live save through one person,
She who could never speak save to one person,
And all the rest of her a shifting change,
A broken bundle of mirrors . . ! "

103 i 2

Villanelle: the Psychological Hour

I HAD over-prepared the event,

that much was ominous.
With middle-ageing care

I had laid out just the right books.
I had almost turned down the pages.

Beauty is so rare a thing.
So few drink of my fountain.

So much barren regret,
So many hours wasted !
And now I watch, from the window,

the rain, the wandering busses.

" Their little cosmos is shaken "

the air is alive with that fact.

In their parts of the city

they are played on by diverse forces.

How do I know ?

Oh, I know well enough.

For them there is something afoot.

104

VILLANELLE

As for me :
I had over-prepared the event

Beauty is so rare a thing.
So few drink of my fountain.

Two friends : a breath of the forest . . .
Friends ? Are people less friends

because one has just, at least, found

them ?
Twice they promised to come.

" Between the night and morning ? "

Beauty would drink of my mind.
Youth would awhile forget

my youth is gone from me.

II

(" Speak up ! You have danced so stiffly ?
Someone admired your works,
And said so frankly.

" Did you talk like a fool,

The first night ?

The second evening ? "

" But they promised again :

' To-morrow at tea-time.' ")
105

VILLANELLE

III

Now the third day is here

no word from either ;
No word from her nor him,
Only another man's note :

" Dear Pound, I am leaving England.'

106

Dans un Omnibus de Londres

LES yeux d'une morte aimee

M'ont salue,

Enchasses dans un visage stupide

Dont tons les autres traits etaient banals,

Us m'ont salue

Et alors je vis bien des choses
Au dedans de ma memoire
Remuer,
S'eveiller.

Je vis des canards sur le bord d'un lac minuscule,
Aupres d'un petit enfant gai, bossu.

Je vis les colonnes anciennes en "toe "

Du Pare Monceau,

Et deux petites filles graciles,

Des patriciennes,

aux toisons couleur de lin,
Et des pigeonnes
Grasses

comme des poulardes.
107

DANS UN OMNIBUS DE LONDRES

Je vis le pare,

Et tous les gazons divers

Ou nous avions loue des chaises

Pour quatre sous.

Je vis les cygnes noirs,

Japonais,

Leurs ailes

Teintees de couleur sang-de-dragon,

Et toutes les fleurs
D'Armenonville.

Les yeux d'une morte
M'ont salue.

108

To a Friend Writing on Cabaret
Dancers

" Breathe not the word to-morrow in her ears"
Vir Quidem, on Dancers.

GOOD " Hedgethorn," for we'll anglicize your

name
Until the last slut's hanged and the last pig

disemboweled,

Seeing your wife is charming and your child
Sings in the open meadow at least the kodak

says so

My good fellow, you, on a cabaret silence
And the dancers, you write a sonnet,
Say "Forget To-morrow," being of all men
The most prudent, orderly, and decorous !

"Pepita" has no to-morrow, so you write.

Pepita has such to-morrows: with the hands

puffed out,

The pug-dog's features encrusted with tallow
Sunk in a frowsy collar an unbrushed black.
She will not bathe too often, but her jewels

109

CABARET DANCERS

Will be a stuffy, opulent sort of fungus

Spread on both hands and on the up-pushed

bosom
It juts like a shelf between the jowl and corset.

Have you, or I seen most of cabarets, good
Hedgethorn ?

Here's Pepita, tall and slim as an Egyptian

mummy,

Marsh-cranberries, the ribbed and angular pods
Flare up with scarlet orange on stiff stalks
And so Pepita

flares on the crowded stage before our

tables
Or slithers about between the dishonest waiters

" Carmen est maigre, un trait de bistre
Cerne son ceil de gitana "

And " rend la flamme "

you know the deathless verses.
I search the features, the avaricious features
Pulled by the kohl and rouge out of resemblance
Six pence the object for a change of passion.

" Write me a poem."

Come now, my dear Pepita,
"-ita, bonita, chiquita,"

that's what you mean you advertising
spade,

110

CABARET DANCERS

Or take the intaglio, my fat great-uncle's heir-
loom :

Cupid, astride a phallus with two wings,
Swinging a cat-o' -nine-tails.

No. Pepita,
I have seen through the crust.

I don't know what you look like
But your smile pulls one way

and your painted grin another,
While that cropped fool,

that torn-boy who can't earn her living.
Come, come to-morrow,

To-morrow in ten years at the latest,
She will be drunk in the ditch, but you, Pepita,
Will be quite rich, quite plump, with pug-bitch

features,

With a black tint staining your cuticle,
Prudent and svelte Pepita.

" Poete, writ me a poeme ! "
Spanish and Paris, love of the arts part of your

geisha-culture !

Euhenia, in short skirts, slaps her wide stomach,
Pulls up a roll of fat for the pianist,
" Pauvre femme maigre ! " she says.

He sucks his chop bone,
That some one else has paid for,

grins up an amiable grin,
Explains the decorations.

Ill

CABARET DANCERS

Good Hedgethorn, they all have futures,
All these people.

Old Popkoff

Will dine next week with Mrs. Basil,
Will meet a duchess and an ex-diplomat's widow
From Weehawken who has never known
Any but " Majesties " and Italian nobles.

Euhenia will have a fonda in Orbajosa.
The amorous nerves will give way to digestive ;
" Delight thy soul in fatness," saith the preacher.
We can't preserve the elusive " mica salis"
It may last well in these dark northern climates,
Nell Gwynn's still here, despite the reformation,
And Edward's mistresses still light the stage,
A glamour of classic youth in their deportment.
The prudent whore is not without her future,
Her bourgeois dulness is deferred.
Her present dulness . . .

Oh well, her present dulness . . .

Now in Venice, 'Storante al Giardino, I went early,
Saw the performers come : him, her, the baby,
A quiet and respectable-tawdry trio ;
An hour later : a show of calves and spangles,

" Un e due f anno tre"

Night after night,

No change, no change of program, " Chi !
La donna e mobile."

112

Homage to Quintus Septimius Florentis
Christianus

(Ex libris Graecae)
I

THEODORUS will be pleased at my death,

And someone else will be pleased at the death of

Theodoras,
And yet everyone speaks evil of death.

II

This place is the Cyprian's, for she has ever the

fancy

To be looking out across the bright sea,
Therefore the sailors are cheered, and the waves
Keep small with reverence, beholding her image.

Anyte.
Ill

A sad and great evil is the expectation of death
And there are also the inane expenses of the

funeral ;

Let us therefore cease from pitying the dead
For after death there comes no other calamity.

Palladas.
113

HOMAGE

IV
Troy

Whither, city, are your profits and your gilded

shrines,

And your barbecues of great oxen,
And the tall women walking your streets, in gilt

clothes,

With their perfumes in little alabaster boxes ?
Where is the work of your home-born sculptors ?

Time's tooth is into the lot, and war's and fate's

too.

Envy has taken your all,
Save your douth and your story.

Agathas Scholasticus.

V

Woman ? Oh, woman is a consummate rage,
but dead, or asleep, she pleases.
Take her. She has two excellent seasons.

Palladas.

VI

Nicharcus upon Phidon his doctor

Phidon neither purged me, nor touched me,
But I remembered the name of his fever medicine

and died.

114

Fish and the Shadow

THE salmon-trout drifts in the stream,
The soul of the salmon-trout floats over the
stream

Like a little wafer of light.

The salmon moves in the sun-shot, bright shallow
sea. . . .

As light as the shadow of the fish

that falls through the water,
She came into the large room by the stair,
Yawning a little she came with the sleep still
upon her.

" I am just from bed. The sleep is still in my

eyes.
" Come. I have had a long dream."

And I: "That wood?
And two springs have passed us."

115

FISH AND THE SHADOW

" Not so far, no, not so far now,

There is a place but no one else knows it

A field in a valley . . .

Qtiieu sui avinen,
leu lo sai."

She must speak of the time

Of Arnaut de Mareuil, I thought, " qu'ieu sui

avinen."

Light as the shadow of the fish

That falls through the pale green water.

LONDON : FEINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED.

4B&